In the Matter of: Antill Pipeline Construction Company, Inc.

Filing 486

ORDER denying 469 Motion to Quash, denying 471 Motion to Quash as set forth in document. Signed by Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Wilkinson, Jr. (Reference: ALL CASES)(car, )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

IN RE: ANTILL PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION
COMPANY, INC., ETC.

CIVIL ACTION
NO. 09-3646
& consol’d cases
SECTION “C”(2)

ORDER ON MOTIONS
APPEARANCES: None (on the briefs)
MOTIONS:

(1)

(2)

Claimant Flak’s and Claimant Gauthier’s Motion to Quash
Notices of Depositions on Written Questions and Subpoenas
Duces Tecum, Record Doc. No. 469 (adopted by Claimant
Brandy Frommeyer Carrere, Record Doc. Nos. 473 and 475)
Voss Claimants’ Motion to Quash Non-Party Subpoenas and
for Protective Order and for Sanctions, Record Doc. No. 471
(adopted by Claimant Brandy Frommeyer Carrere, Record
Doc. Nos. 473 and 475)

O R D E R E D:

(1), (2) : DENIED, subject to the protective order contained herein. The motion is denied
insofar as it relates to the eight (8) subject subpoenas that were issued from courts other
than the Eastern District of Louisiana. Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(c) controls disposition of these
motions concerning the subpoenas issued by other courts. In the absence of transfer to
this court, see United States v. Star Scientific, Inc., 205 F. Supp. 2d 482, 484-88 (D. Md.
2002) (and cases cited therein), the Rule is “clear that motions to quash, modify, or
condition the subpoena [issued to non-parties] are to be made in the district court of the
district from which the subpoena issued.” 9A Charles Alan Wright and Arthur R. Miller,
Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil 3d § 2463.1 at 485 (Thomson West 2008) (citing
Brown v. Braddick, 595 F.2d 961, 964 (5th Cir. 1979)) (hereinafter “Wright and Miller”)
(additional citations omitted) (emphasis added); Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(c)(3)(A) and (B). “It
is the issuing court that has the necessary jurisdiction over the party issuing the subpoena
and the person served with it to enforce the subpoena.” Wright and Miller, § 2463.1 at
485. In this case, the United States District Courts for the Southern District of Texas, the
Districts of Massachusetts, New Jersey and Arizona, and the Northern District of New
York, Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Eastern District of Virginia–not this
court–have the authority to quash or modify the subpoenas.

The motion is denied as to the three subpoenas issued by this court. This court’s
previous orders, Record Doc. Nos. 390-93, concerning requests to claimants, as opposed
to third parties, for production of similar kinds of materials, do not control. The previous
orders denied a requested order compelling claimants to produce these materials based
principally upon the Rule 26(b)(2)(C)(i) and (iii) proportionality balancing of burden etc.
on claimants when compared to the tangential relevance of the materials. The burdens
imposed by these subpoenas are principally upon the party that issued them and on the
subpoena recipients, who are in the business of accumulating and maintaining these
materials and whose reasonable costs will be reimbursed to them. These three subpoena
recipients have not themselves complained about any burden. Thus, the Rule 26(b)(2)
proportionality evaluation yields a different result when considering requests to banks as
opposed to claimants and the more closely applicable standard of Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(c).
Accordingly, the subpoenas issued by this court to Synergy Bank, First American Bank and
Hibernia National Bank are not quashed. However, given the private and personally
sensitive nature of the requested materials,
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that all records produced by Synergy Bank, First
American Bank and Hibernia National Bank in response to the subpoenas are subject to
the following protective order. All information produced in accordance with this order
must be marked and kept confidential and used only for purposes of this litigation and
must not be disclosed to any one except parties to this litigation, the parties' counsel of
record and experts retained in connection with this litigation. All persons to whom such
information is disclosed must sign an affidavit that must be filed into the record, agreeing
to the terms of the protective order and submitting to the jurisdiction of this court for
enforcement of those terms. All reasonable costs of producing the responsive materials
must be paid by Antill Pipeline Construction Co., Inc. In addition, no later than within
seven (7) days of its receipt of materials responsive to the subpoenas, Antill must at its
cost (and without cost to any other party) make copies of all responsive materials and
produce them to counsel for all other parties to this action. If any party seeks to add other
terms to this protective order, counsel must confer immediately and submit by motion
any proposed protective order.
All requests for awards of sanctions by both sides are denied. The motion has been
granted in part and denied in part. Under the circumstances presented by this case, I find
that all parties should bear their own expenses in connection with these motions.
New Orleans, Louisiana, this

7th

day of March, 2012.

JOSEPH C. WILKINSON, JR.
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
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